Email this article to a friend

The Pensions Infrastructure Platform, set up a year ago by a group of pension funds to manage infrastructure investments on a not-for-profit basis, is planning the launch of a second fund, investing in solar power.

The proposed new fund will be run by Aviva Investors, in partnership with PIP, on a similar model to its existing fund – a £350 million vehicle investing in public-private partnership projects, run by Dalmore Capital.

Aviva and PIP said that it will have an initial target of £250 million and they hope to begin fundraising next month.

Mike Weston, chief executive of the PIP, said one of his objectives since starting in his role in September had been to “work with the founding investors to develop additional investment opportunities. One of those is Solar PV [photovoltaics].”

The new fund is planned to make a series of investments in “small scale solar PV installations on domestic housing, commercial premises or public buildings”.

It will be managed by Ian Berry’s infrastructure team at Aviva Investors, which has already invested £350 million in solar since 2012.

The Pensions Infrastructure Platform began operations in February 2014, with the launch of the Dalmore fund, raising an initial £330 million from the PIP’s founding pension schemes.

Related

Michael Ryan, chief executive of Dalmore, said yesterday that the PPP fund, which invests in long-term contracts to provide services to hospitals and schools, had raised a further £20 million to date, and had received additional commitments expected to take it to £400 million by the end of the first quarter.

Dalmore has raised the hard cap on the fund to £600 million, he added, and hopes to achieve that target by September, when it will close.

Weston also reiterated the PIP's interest in joining one of two consortia bidding to build and run the £4 billion Thames Tideway Tunnel project, which is to dig a giant super-sewer under London. The PIP's involvement was first reported by Financial News in January

Weston said the long-term aim for the PIP remains to achieve authorisation as a fund manager in its own right, with its not-for-profit status meaning it can charge less than infrastructure funds raised and managed by banks or asset managers.

PIP is aiming to charge around 0.5% of assets per year, compared to the 1-2% of assets, plus performance fees, that private funds can charge.

Weston said yesterday the PIP hopes to secure authorisation from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority as a fund manager by the end of this year. He is planning to recruit and build a management team from 2016 onwards.

• Separately, the Australian infrastructure manager Macquarie said yesterday it had lent out £21.5 million to the operators of a 113,000-panel solar photovoltaic project in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The solar-panel project is owned by another asset manager, Quercus Assets Selection of Luxembourg.